British media house Sky News was on Thursday, November 21 forced to unpublish a story that claimed to have identified the man who fell out of a Kenya Airways plane in London.
In an article published on November 11, Sky News identified Paul Manyasi as the stowaway and reported that he was an employee of Colnet, a cleaning company based at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
In the story, it circulated pictures together with the documentary alleging that the man in the picture was Manyasi the stowaway.
But this was not the case, as much as the media house might have gotten right the name of the victim the photos used were of one Cedric Isaac Shivonje.
25-year-old Shivonje is a remandee at the Kamiti maximum-security prison where he is charging defilement charges at the Kibera law court.
Daily Nation visited the met and interviewed him in prison in the company of his father Isaac Beti, 45, and Nairobi lawyer James Mbugua., where he is being held after failing to raise Ksh200,000 bail for an unrelated case.
“I am alive, as you can see,” stated Shivonje who was excited after seeing his father who had travelled all the way from Butali in Kakamega for the interview.
His father, who identifies himself as Isaac Betti and not Isaac Manyasi as identified by the Sky News reported, had come to Nairobi to visit his son for the first time in two years.
Shivonje’s emergence now complicates the identification dilemma of the man who nestled in the landing compartment of the aircraft on June 30 and fell 3,500 feet as the plane approached Heathrow Airport in London.
“Those are my photos and they were taken from my Facebook page,” Sivonje added
Kenya Airports Authority issued a statement saying the name Paul Manyasi “does not appear in the JKIA staff register and in the airport’s pass biometric register”. Colnet also denied it had employed a Paul Manyasi.
Shijvonje's father admitted to having misled the Sky news team when they visited his home with questions about his son claiming he did not want to tell them or the village that his son was in prison.
He further stated that Sky news team handed him Ksh20,000 before they left his home.
Isaac Beti and his family planned to sue the British media house for what they termed as defaming their son plus they alleged he had to undergo cleansing after being declared dead.
Through Nairobi law firm MJM Law LLP the family wrote a demand letter, which dismissed the ‘Sky TV’ story as “malicious and reckless” and with “blatant falsehoods”.
